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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Torn From a Page in a Best-Selling Book

A new feature for the Cereal Box: If Sunday is Maria Bamford Day, as it's apparently become, then Saturday gets to be Strange Word Day. Here goes.
fissilingual (FISS-il-ING-wool) — adjective: possessing a forked tongue.
A good word to referring to anyone featured in a Google image search for "tongue splitting," and altogether a word that we don't get to use often enough. View at your own risk, and know that these people were not born this way.

A regular Google search for the same term also brings up the Loftus Plastic Surgery Center webpage, which includes a thorough explanation of tongue splitting procedures, as well as the following paragraph, which I enjoy despite its notable lack of the word "fissilingual."
Many will wonder, "Why would anyone ever choose to have such a thing done?" Suffice it to say, that we live in a free country. Many men and women across the country have caught onto this trend and tongue splitting has become increasingly popular. At the Loftus Plastic Surgery Center, our goal is not to pass judgment, but to ensure safety for the public. Unless this procedure is offered by a reputable surgeon, those seeking it may be forced to have it in unclean and unsafe environments.
Note how they carefully avoid giving an answer to the question of why anybody would want this done. My offer for an answer: to give reason to use the word "fissilingual."

[ Source: Depraved and Insulting English ]

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